Untitled

Technically, shakshuka is just poached eggs in spicy tomato sauce, but that’s like saying pizza is just some dough with cheese and tomato.

Like pizza, there’s good shaksuka, awful shaksuka and Oh-my-God-this-is-awesome shakshuka. If you want the best (but really…the best) you’d go to the Mecca (that might be the wrong word here) of shakshuka: Dr. Shakshuka in the old Arab port city of Jaffa, Israel. The Doctor throws down insanely good homestyle Libyan food. If you’re in Tel Aviv and you don’t talk a stroll over, you missed something incredible.

Dr. Shakshuka happens to be my father-in-law’s brother-in-law. My father-in-law is Dr. Devash, the coolest biotech supergenius, pioneering HIV researcher, killer blues and classical guitar player you’ll ever meet. Sinatra’s “My Way” should be playing wherever he goes. He lives life the way he wants to, and whenever my wife and I are debating whether to travel or stay home and be boring, I ask “what would your dad do?’ and we’re getting sunburned in Barcaloneta.

With all those advanced degrees in shakshuka wizardry, you’d think I could rock one out. Hell yeah I can.